


this must be the place

by bettyboopz



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Powers, Artist Steve Rogers, Dom/sub Undertones, Friends to Lovers, Insomnia, M/M, Non-Serum Steve Rogers/Winter Soldier Bucky Barnes | Shrinkyclinks, Pining, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, Slow Burn, Sugar Daddy, a symbiotic sugar daddyship, bucky is steve's sugar daddy with money and steve is bucky's sugar daddy with...affection, possibly eventual overtones who knows?, tags will almost definitely be added and the rating will almost definitely go up, this is just a hallmark movie but raunchier
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-09
Updated: 2018-07-06
Packaged: 2019-05-20 07:38:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 15,346
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14890335
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bettyboopz/pseuds/bettyboopz
Summary: "If you finish that and still want more," James says, leaning forward, "don't be shy. I'll get you anything you want. If you have to go back to work, you can save it for when you have time.""Careful there, you're gonna spoil me.""That wouldn't be so bad, would it?"~The one where Steve is a starving artist with a mouth that gets him in trouble and Bucky is a stupidly rich, mildly agoraphobic inventor who yearns for direction.





	1. Chapter 1

The diner has the atmosphere of a space station on the moon at three a.m. Almost no one comes in and those that do speak in hushed tones, either because they are tired or because the kind of customers that come in between midnight and dawn are often either having an affair or setting up a hit or because there is an unspoken need for delicacy at such a touch-and-go hour. 

Steve has worked there four months and can say with confidence he'll never get used to the surreality of serving someone their eggs and bacon while he's dreaming on his feet. A woman in scrubs might ask for coffee but it's the duck printed on her shirt doing the talking. A pair of construction workers ask him to marry them and he says "Sure, coming right up." 

"Well, Steve," Sam and Natasha and his mother's voices ring out in the back of his head, "Maybe you should pull less all-nighters so that you'll have energy to work the night shift and work on your art too." 

But he hasn't been able to sleep. He's never been superstitious, and his mother only had been reluctantly, but her talk of signs and visions had stuck with him as a child and never completely left, and now they ring true. He feels a greater force hurtling towards him and he must remain awake to meet it or he will miss it like a child who wanted to stay up to ring in the new year but couldn't manage to keep his eyes open. 

In short, he's been frantically working on his painting, sure he's close to a breakthrough of genius that only happens to certain people every few decades. It's not for love or money; it's more complicated than that. It's the need to purge the tangle of emotions inside him into color, into something external that can become someone else's problem, or salvation, or brief passing conversation at dinner. 

"Did you see that painting of the . . ." they might say over their vegan lasagna. 

"Oh yeah, the one by the little blonde asshole," another might reply. "The one with the big bags under his eyes and the ugly-ass nose." 

"That one," the first will say, pointing a forkful of vegan lasagna at their companion. 

Steve couldn't give a fuck about the reception, he just wants his art to be . . .  _art_. Nothing satisfies him, nothing is right. He doesn't need it to be Van Gogh or Vermeer or Caravaggio, he needs it to be Steve Rogers and everything on his canvass is coming out Halfassed Insomniac Dipshit. The yellowish skyline looks like dirty dishwater and the light overlooking the East River resembles the buzzing fluorescents in the men's' room and the grass could be the threadbare placemat in front of the door. 

So he's thinking of paint and lighting and how perhaps the building has really been launched into space when no one was paying attention when the bell finally rings over the door. 

"We got a live one," Belle calls from the kitchen. 

The man wears a leather jacket and a ballcap pulled low over his face and his dark unwashed hair brushes his broad shoulders. He shuffles his feet and looks seconds from bolting. 

"Hey, just one?" Steve asks dutifully. 

The man jerks his chin once. 

"Cool, this way." 

Steve leads him to a table in the corner and asks him what he wants to drink. 

"Water," he says in a soft, hoarse voice. 

"Coming right up. Take a look at this," he says, handing him a menu, taking note of his leather gloves, "and I'll be right back with your drink." 

When he returns with the glass of ice water, the man is studying the menu so intently he doesn't look up. In some people it might come off as rude but by the twitch in his jaw and his roving eyes, the man is truly in deep thought. 

Steve clears his throat after a beat. "Need a minute?" 

The man nods again without looking up. 

"Take your time." 

Steve fucks off back to the kitchen and chats with Belle and Joe for a few minutes, Joe mostly in grunts. Their daughter is pregnant again, with twins, again. She's already saving to buy them matching cribs. Joe wants to get them a flat screen TV "for the Giants games." For when they stay at Gram and Gramps', of course. 

When Steve returns to the lone diner, he's still reading the menu, now holding it over his face. 

"Know what you want, buddy?" 

Slowly, the man lays the menu down and looks up at him with the most lost, raw look he's ever seen on a grown man. 

"I don't know," he says quietly. 

"Hey, that's okay," Steve says, mildly floored. No one has ever looked at him like that before, and one doesn't expect such a disproportionate reaction at all when asking a stranger what they want to eat. "I'll give you as long as you need to decide, just wave me over when you – " 

"I," the guy interrupts, then pauses, mouthing twisting. "I, ah, don't think I'm going to decide." 

"Oh?" Then, realizing that the man is not just fucking with him and actually wants to order but simply can't make up his mind: "Oh, okay. Can never go wrong with eggs and toast, unless you have allergies?" 

The man shakes his head, gaze fixed on the tabletop. 

"Hey, don't worry about it. Eggs and toast sound good?" 

"I didn't always need someone to tell me what to eat, okay?" The man huffs what sounds like a laugh, scrubbing a hand over his face, incidentally pushing back the hat. "God, I'm fuckin' pathetic." 

"Hey, none of that. I already told you what you're having," Steve says. "You're having eggs, scrambled, and toast, rye, right? That wasn't so hard. There's no problem here." 

The man looks at him in surprise, like he was really noticing him for the first time, or like he'd been expecting him to mock him for having trouble. Holding eye contact, he nods. 

"Good. I'll go put that in." 

Steve walks away and feels the man's eyes on his back until the door swings shut behind him. 

Fifteen minutes later Steve delivers his food. 

"Thanks," the man says. "Sorry about losing it before. It's, uh, it's kind of a bad night." 

"It's no problem at all. You ever come by this way again, ask for Steve. I'll order you a hamburger with all the fixings next time." 

The man stares, then laughs, a startled sound. "That sounds alright to me." 

"Alright," Steve says, giving him a warm smile before leaving him to eat. 

He must inhale it, because when he comes back out into the dining area there are only crumbs on the plate, the money for the meal and a twenty for Steve. 

Steve realizes he hadn't felt asleep once since the man had walked through the door. 

*** 

A couple weeks pass and Steve doesn't think about the man from the diner. He  _does_  think about the bills piling up, thinks about them until they appear in his half-awake dreams. His electric bill chases him through the kitchen and he weaves his way desperately between the stove and the fryer, a pile of unwashed plates held above his head. 

"Something's got to be done about that boy," Belle mutters, and in his fevered mind he sees the words printed in red above a six-figure sum that flies from the paper and loops around his neck like a noose. 

He still hasn't finished paying off his mother's funeral costs or the two years-worth of art school debt – he can't even think about it. He's whittled his groceries down to bread and cans of soup, sometimes peanut butter if he's feeling decadent. It's only a matter of time before he'll be evicted from his crappy roach-infested apartment, and beyond that? He has no idea what he's going to do. 

Half past one on Thursday the diner is incredibly slow, and he's contemplating sneaking between Joe's legs and curling up beneath the sink for a two minute or two-day nap when the bell rings over the door and the man in the ballcap walks in. He doesn't look ready to flee this time; when he sees Steve, he smiles broadly. 

"A hamburger with all the fixings is in order, I think," he says as Steve leads him to the same vacant table as before. 

"Good choice," Steve says, smiling at him over his shoulder. "Water again?" 

"Yeah, please." 

Steve returns with his drink and the man glances at him from beneath the brim of his hat, quickly looking away again. 

"Thanks." 

A while later, Steve is setting the plate of food in front of him. 

"Enjoy. And hey, you ever need someone to tell you what type of carbs you're gonna have for breakfast, you know where to go. I mean it." 

The man studies him a minute, wary gray eyes scanning his face. Steve wonders if he found what he was looking for when he says, "Got another favor to ask." The man gestures at the empty seat. "Could you sit with me a minute?" 

Steve's eyebrows rise. It hadn't been the request he'd been expecting, or would have if he'd been expecting anything. 

"Sure," he says quickly, sliding into the opposite booth. There isn't anything else to do until another customer comes in and Joe and Belle have the kitchen more than covered now that the food is fixed. He's their best (and only reliable) worker so they wouldn't bat an eye at him taking a break for a minute. 

The man doesn't say anything straight away, just strips off his leather gloves and starts in on his burger. Steve thinks he might be working up to what he wants to say, maybe another shamefaced apology, or maybe the guy's just lonely. He takes the opportunity to study him. 

Steve tried not to notice it the first night, but he's disgustingly attractive, in the way that sends a jolt to his gut every time their eyes meet, unsteadies his breathing as effectively as a chop to the throat or an oncoming asthma attack and –  _Sweet Jesus, Rogers_ _, get it together_ , he tells himself sternly,  _We_ _'ve_ _met twice_ _. Briefly._ _You_ _don't even know his name_.  

This close, he's shocked to realize how young he is. Two or three years older than him, if that. Even more shocking is his left hand. 

Steve is no stranger to prosthetics. He'd graduated high school with a boy with a prosthetic leg, and his first girlfriend's younger brother had had an arm that he liked to unhook at the elbow under his sleeve so that people who didn't know would pull it off when they went to shake. That had been a memorable first impression. 

But never in his life has he seen prosthetic fingers curl around a glass or stretch to grab a bottle of ketchup, making a soft, barely audible whir as the joints moved and flexed fluidly. 

"Like Luke Skywalker," he breathes involuntarily, immediately wishing he was dead. 

The man grunts, but his lips quirk up at the corners. "Yeah, totally Star Wars, right?" He wriggles his fingers for Steve's benefit; they bend and twist like organic fingers would. "Lost it in a card game." 

"Must've been a bad  _hand,_ " Steve blurts. 

The man grins at him. 

Steve's about to beg for forgiveness and offer his permission for the guy to drag him out back and punch his teeth in with his super cool hand when his stomach emits the loudest growl he's ever heard in his life. 

Joe actually opens the slot to the kitchen and sticks his gray head out. "What's all that noise?" 

"Dump truck," Steve says miserably at the same time as the man says, "Hey, is it alright if I get another order of this?" 

Joe makes the OK sign and disappears. 

"First thing most people say is how sorry they are," the man says with a grimace. "If they say anything at all. Some just stare, like I've got two heads or something." 

"Sorry if I made it weird. I just think it's cool, man, you're a fucking cyborg." 

The man's smile returns, delighted. With the shaggy hair and the faded Yankees cap, he could be a movie star in disguise. "Mad scientist owed me a favor." 

Joe shuffles out with a plate and sets it beside the man's. 

"For him," the man says, gesturing to Steve. 

"Here ya go, ya fuckin' bum," Joe says affectionately without missing a beat. He practically ruffles Steve's hair. "Enjoy the fruits of my labor." 

"Thank you so much, Joe," Steve says, giving him the eye as Joe chuckles and goes back to the kitchen. "That's real nice of you," he tells the man, "but I can't pay for this." 

"Who said anything about you paying?" 

Steve starts to protest, horrified at the thought of the man taking pity on him, but the smell of juicy burger and onion is monopolizing his biological senses. He's prideful, but he's only human. 

"You don't have to," he says, and it's weak, he knows it's weak, because he hasn't eaten since the morning before and that had just been a bag of chips, but he can't let it go just like that. "You should let me box it up and you can save it for later." 

"Or you can stop salivating and dig in. It's none of my business, but you look exhausted. Meal might help." 

Steve wants to keep fighting, it's in his nature, but it's true. He  _is_ exhausted, and he's hungry, and to be honest, he just wants to have something good happen for once and not put too much thought into it. 

"Thanks," he says faintly. "Really, I can pay you back - " 

"Nah. Eat your food, Steve." 

That electric jolts hits him at that melodious voice saying his name, shooting warmth through him like sunlight. "It seems like we're at a disadvantage." He waves a hand at himself. "Steve, Steve Rogers." 

"Barnes," says the man, deepening his voice. "James Barnes." 

"You use that a lot, huh?" Steve smiles and gives in, taking a huge bite of the burger. "Oh my god that's good," he sighs. 

"If you finish that and still want more," James says, leaning forward, "don't be shy. I'll get you anything you want. If you have to go back to work, you can save it for when you have time." 

"Careful there, you're gonna spoil me." 

"That wouldn't be so bad, would it?" 

Steve has to smile, and hope to God the blush he feels on his cheeks isn't glaringly apparent. 

He starts eating in earnest, telling himself it's because he wants to be done before someone else comes in, but truthfully it's because he's even hungrier than he'd realized. 

"I don't eat out a lot, if it wasn't obvious the last time," James says over picking at his fries. Steve thinks dirty thoughts and mentally chastises himself like a 19th century school teacher, a ruler cracking across both knuckles. "Wouldn't have the other night, but uh. Was out of food and this was on my way to the store. Didn't know how bad my, ah, problem was and thought it might be easier." He looks up at Steve and gives him that almost shy smile again. "I'm glad I did, though." 

"I'm glad you did too," Steve says teasingly, "or else my stomach would still sound like a chainsaw." 

James's smile is beautiful, and infectious. "You're kind of an asshole, you know? And I don't have enough assholes in my life. This was fate." 

The bell over the door rings before Steve can reply and a big group of people crowds in. 

"That's my cue," Steve says, standing. "Come in and buy me dinner anytime you want," he jokes. 

"I just might," James calls after him. 

By the time he's served the group their drinks and taken their orders, James is gone again. The correct amount for both their meals is on the table. 

So is a hundred-dollar bill. 

Steve gapes at it for a good thirty seconds, heat again flaring in his cheeks. If this handsome, charming, by turns endearingly bashful and refreshingly forward fucker thinks he can just come in here and buy him food and give him money and he'll just roll over and do tricks – 

His stomach rumbles again. 

The burger and fries long gone and shift over, he breaks the hundred and buys himself French toast and an omelet and a large milkshake and feels full for the first time in months. When he gets home, instead of throwing himself into his work until he wakes with his face in the paint like he usually does, he throws himself into bed and goes to sleep.


	2. Chapter 2

Bucky wakes up on the floor of his bedroom in a cold sweat, automatically reaching for his gun.

Big green eyes slowly blink back at him.

"Oh." He exhales in a whoosh, lying back down. His bedroom is comfortingly blue, every lamp turned on, and a fluffy charcoal gray bundle crawls up from his lap to his chest, settling down with a purr. "Hi, Koshka."

" _Mrow_."

"You should be in your bed, fuzzball."

The cat kneads at his t-shirt instead. When he's satisfied, he curls up and closes his eyes, rumbling contentedly.

"Okay," Bucky sighs, carefully petting his tiny head. "Okay."

If it wasn't for Koshka's six pounds anchoring him he would be pacing the floor, compulsively checking the apartment's perimeter, firing up a pot of coffee that he'll only drink half a cup of before forgetting it and letting it sit all day.

The nightmare hadn't been particularly bad. It left an ashy taste in his mouth and a wrung-out nausea like he's been throwing up for hours, but no specific images remain with him, only the lingering dread.

It's tempting to go to the diner on the corner. To go to Steve. Not many people know how to handle him, if they dare speak to him at all, and a stranger he'd spoken to for just a little over an hour once had not only treated his problem with decision making like nothing, or thought anything of his arm but that it was  _cool, man, you're a fucking cyborg_  . . .

" _Mrow_ _,_ " Koshka says, staring him down with one eye open.

Bucky tries to wipe the smile from his face but it's not going anywhere.

This might become a problem.

Not only did Steve treat him like a normal person instead of a threat or a freak or something to be used, he could hold a decent conversation, and he flushed a glowing adorable red from his neck to the tips of his ears when he blushed, and his voice was like dark chocolate-covered gravel, and his eyes were deep blue like the sea in a storm, and . . .

"Jesus Christ," Bucky laughs aloud helplessly. He thinks this must be what it should have been like to be a teenager.

If he goes to the diner, he reasons, he'll have to change into different clothes and possibly shower. He's covered in sweat and cat hair. If he showers, he'll use the last of his body wash and then he'll have to go to the store and get more, and he's not sure he wants to do that. He's only been wearing these clothes for a few hours, so it would be a waste to change only to come home and change back, and pointless either way if he doesn't shower.

He thinks about getting up and calling Natasha, but then he'd disturb Koshka. She might not answer anyway. She's still in the business, or in  _a_ business, he supposes, hopefully not the same one, and she's been sent to some European country where either the reception is bad or her burner phone has had it.

He could call Clint, but Koshka, and also Clint has almost certainly pulled out his stash because Nat's not there to tell him no and because Nat's not there and when he's worried, he smokes, so he's probably stoned, having a good time with pizza or his right hand. He doesn't need Bucky bumming him out.

It crosses his mind he could call his mother but . . . no.

So he lies there staring at the ceiling until his cat's rhythmic breathing lulls him back to sleep.

***

"You need to get laid, Barnes."

"You need to learn about boundaries, Stark."

"You've held my guts in with your hand and a prayer and I've watched you have an emotional breakdown. I think we're way past boundaries."

Bucky snorts from beneath a pile of metal, wrench clink-clinking. "I hate that you're probably right."

"I  _know_  I'm right," Tony says, folding his hands under his chin. "It's a defining characteristic. Now," he begins, in his Getting Down To Business voice that really has nothing to do with business and everything to do with his Set Up Barnes project and Bucky very much regrets accepting this Skype call, "I know a guy. Or know someone who knows a guy. A guy who I am going to set you up with on a blind date."

Bucky hums noncommittally.

"Oh come on, you could at least pretend to be interested."

"That would take a lot of energy," Bucky says, pushing out from beneath his prototype and walking around to his desk. He levels Tony a look as he reaches for a towel to wipe his grease-stained hands with. "And my mind would be elsewhere."

"Oh  _Barnes_ , you old flirt," Tony teases, and then, "Wait, is that a  _smile_? Do you need medical attention? Should I call some - " He gasps. "You met someone!  _You,_  Hermit Barnes? And didn't tell me before I started out on my ambitious Set Up Barnes project? You little rat bastard!"

Bucky shakes his head, then shrugs. "No, I mean. I'm interested in someone I met, but I don't know."

Tony stares at him, then scrubs a hand over his face. "You're almost as smart as I am – almost – and I wouldn't say that about many people, but you're a fucking idiot, Barnes. Are you in ninth grade?"

"Never made it that far," he says which shuts Tony up for a blessed five seconds. "There's a guy, okay? A real cute guy, and it's never going to go anywhere because he doesn't deserve a fuck up like me and he's probably straight anyway."

"Let me stop you right there. You are  _fucked up_ , Barnes, you are not a fuck up." He looks away from the screen and cups a hand over his mouth. "Jarvis, make a note that I'm going to write a children's book-style  _novel_  called James Barnes Is Not A Fuck Up. With pictures."

The AI butler's voice is muffled but audible through the computer's speakers. "Noted, sir."

"Thanks, Jarvis." Tony turns back to Bucky and points a finger at him. "Anyone would be lucky to have you. Now who is this guy so I can tentatively add him to my hit list in case he's a fellow rat bastard?"

"I hope you're not implying I'm on your list too," Bucky says dryly.

"Oh, never you, Sugar Lips."

Bucky snorts. "Thought we agreed to never bring that up." He drums his fingers on the desk. "I'll tell you this much: His name's Steve and I met him at the diner where he works and I swear I can't say anything else about him because I'll start gushing like a seventeen-year-old and then you'll have to kill me for my self-respect's sake."

"Steve? He works at a diner?" Tony asks incredulously.

"Yeah, the fuck's wrong with that?"

"Nothing, nothing. Jeez, can't a guy be curious?" There is something crafty in his eyes that Bucky knows not to trust. "I still think you should let me set you up. Just the once. If it doesn't work out, I'll owe you."

"I'll think about it," Bucky says in a tone that means he won't.

"You're so difficult," Tony complains half-heartedly. "Alright, well, I've got a date with the missus. Then it's back to the ole grindstone! Which reminds me, why aren't you working? Sitting down on the job? I'm scandalized, shocked, appalled, baffled and b-"

"Tell Pepper I said hi." Bucky ends the call and so doesn't find out what else Tony is.

***

It was decided pretty early on in his days back in New York that his best option was working from home. He had set up a lab in his apartment that's admittedly smaller and less stocked than Tony's, but he makes out alright, just grateful he doesn't have to make the commute to Stark Tower in Manhattan every day.

All the anxiety-fueled panic that comes with making decisions is absent when inventing. When the idea hits him to create, say, a flyable bike, he makes it and there is no question of how or when or why or what if about going about it. 

His true passion is making prosthetics for people, advanced, personalized prosthetics similar to his own, for free. Bucky has always let Tony handle the business and PR end of the partnership (or at least  _someone_  handles the PR), and one of Tony's people tried persuading him that he should still be making some kind of profit even if it came from insurance, but Bucky refused pointblank. He'd give up the profession altogether, give away everything he owned and go live in the woods somewhere before he made someone pay for something as life-changing as a prosthetic while he was essentially what his grandmother would have called a "fat cat."

It's his other inventions, the hologram iPhones and heat-resistant skin sheets and solar-powered energy enhancers to name a few, that bring in the money. So much money he has no idea what to do with it, at this point. What he doesn't give to charities or pour into communities or use to pay for someone's medical expenses just sits around until he finds a new charity or family in need to give it to.

The truth is, he doesn't feel worthy of anything he has. His fucked-up mind has made him useless for SHIELD missions, not that he'd go back to them if they got on their knees and begged, and the only other thing he seems to be good at is manifesting the sci-fi related daydreams he'd had as a child into reality. That it pays well is just an unexpected side effect.

***

Bucky gives in, like he knew he would.

He comes in earlier than he has before, a little before midnight, intending to buy Steve dinner. Maybe even convince him to let him take him somewhere nicer another time. He has no illusions Steve might be interested in him or that he might win him over by buying him things, but it would be nice to treat him to something. He doesn't come across as someone who's in the habit of taking care of himself.

"Sit anywhere you want," a teenager backing out of the kitchen with a tray of plates calls to him. "Be right with you."

What he already thinks of as his usual seat is taken, so he takes one a few over.

The girl comes and takes his order and he wants to ask about Steve but no, he tells himself, it would be stupid. He's just a guy who's come in a couple times and he and Steve struck up a conversation once. Steve's probably already forgotten him.

He sits staring at the ice slowly spinning in his glass and trying to tamp down how unjustifiably upset he is when he happens to look up.

An older woman is sitting at the counter smiling at him. The window to the kitchen slides up and the grizzled man from his last visit appears. She says something to him and he turns and looks at Bucky, then shakes his head and laughs, disappearing again. To his horror, the woman gets up and comes over to his table.

"You must be James," she says.

"Uh," says the man Forbes magazine called a genius, "Yeah."

"I'm Belle," she says, and oh, of course. The diner is Belle & Joe's. Steve probably complained to his boss that a weird guy named James had to be told what he was ordering. He hopes belatedly Steve didn't get into trouble for sitting down on the clock, but before he can ask Belle is speaking.

"He works the day shift on Mondays and Wednesdays. Maybe try tomorrow."

"Oh, ah, thanks, ma'am."

"'Ma'am'! Aren't you cute." She lightly slaps his arm – the flesh one. "Well, I'll tell him you dropped by." She raises her eyebrows at his panic-stricken expression. "Or you could tell him yourself the next time you come in. No, I'm not above blackmailing folks to get customers."

She goes back to the counter and turns up the TV mounted on the wall. A compromising picture of Tony involving bunny ears and a censor bar is splashed across the late night news and Bucky suspects he's somewhere enjoying the hell out of it.

" . . . never hear anything at  _all_ from his reclusive business partner, Buchanan Barnes. He could live in this outfit, for all we know."

Bucky freezes, his skin literally growing cold. He looks up, and Belle is looking at the TV where a candid picture of him taken maybe three years ago is displayed, and then turns towards him. He quickly swerves his gaze away, but when he looks back she's staring.

She smiles and holds a finger to her lips.

***

A week passes before Bucky gathers his nerve.

No sooner has he come in than Steve is beelining for him and holding out a wad of cash.

"I'm not a charity case. Got it?"

Bucky doesn't make any move to take the money. "Got it. Keep that, though. It's yours."

Steve's nostrils flare and oh  _God_  why is that cute? Why is even  _that_ cute? He stuffs the money into his uniform pants' pocket and turns on his heel. Bucky follows him to his regular booth.

"I hope you like hash browns and blueberry pancakes," Steve says curtly, "because I already ordered when I saw you coming."

Bucky isn't sure if he's drooling because he loves hash browns and blueberry pancakes or because the fact Steve ordered for him before he even walked in is startlingly hot.

"Don't worry about whether or not I like it, I think I'd eat it even if I was allergic to blueberries if you told me to," his dick says, and yes he's going to have to leave town. Tonight. Immediately. He'll send Nat, Tony and Clint frowny faces in the mail instead of over text because he's old-fashioned and a contrary bastard.

The coldness in Steve's eyes abruptly vanishes and is replaced by something unreadable; his tongue pushes into his cheek. "Yeah?" he murmurs. Dark chocolate over gravel; goddamn it, Barnes.

"Mhmm," Bucky says intelligently, because he might as well dig himself deeper.

"Well, I keep an Epi-Pen on me. You'd be alright."

Steve moves onto his other customers and Bucky squirms in his seat, watching him walk away.

He comes back with a steaming pile of pancakes and crispy hash browns. Bucky watches, jittering with nerves, as Steve reaches across from him, a split-second of sandalwood and something chemical hitting his nose, and grabs a bottle of syrup from the side of the table. He pours a liberal amount over his food, hash browns included.

"Clear your plate," Steve says. "I mean it."

He looks at him, a question in his eyes. Bucky, after collecting his jaw from the tabletop, nods subtly.

"Okay?" Steve prompts.

"Okay."

"Good. I'll be checking, so don't go anywhere."

Steve walks away again, and Bucky is convinced none of that actually happened. But his food is soaked in maple syrup, and it does looks awfully good, so he takes up his fork and gets to work.

"Slowing down?"

Bucky jumps. Steve is leaning against the table, watching him intently. He refills his glass of water even though it's already almost at the brim.

Bucky hadn't realized, but he only has a small amount of pancake left. Without breaking eye contact, he scoops it into his mouth, chews and swallows.

"Good job," Steve says like he just passed the bar or made a fire with his mind or something. "But I still see syrup."

He says it like a challenge, and oh boy. This guy does not know who he's talking to.

Bucky picks the plate up and, holding it so as not to spill any, begins to lick it up.

Steve grabs the edge of the plate and tugs it away, twisting to look over his shoulder.

His face is firetruck-red when he turns around. Interesting.

"I didn't think you'd actually do it," he says, grinning in disbelief.

"You told me to."

"If I told you to jump off a bridge – don't answer that." Steve bites his fat lower lip and Bucky quickly looks back at Steve's eyes. Nice save, Barnes. Real smooth. "If I tell you not to leave me anymore hundred-fucking-dollar tips . . ."

"I won't leave you anymore hundred-fucking-dollar tips," Bucky says, laying a hand over his heart. "Promise. Seriously, I didn't mean to piss you off. I was just trying to help."

"Okay, James. I forgive you. But don't. I can take care of myself."

Bucky's not so sure, but he's not going to argue.

"I hear you. And call me Bucky," he says. "Only my grandma and people who don't know me call me James."

Steve laughs. "James was my pop's name and Bucky was my teddy bear when I was a kid. I don't know which would be more awkward to . . . ha."

More awkward to . . .? God, how much redder can his face get? "Well, I can be your teddy bear now, if you want."

"You don't fuck around, do you."

"No, but I'm amenable."

"I have to work," Steve says exasperatedly, throwing his hands up, but he's smiling. "You're ridiculous," he counts off on his fingers, "and I'll see you around. Expect biscuits and gravy next time."

When Bucky is done eating and mooning over Steve from across the room, he thinks about being a smartass and leaving a fifty, four tens and nine ones but decides even he's not that much of a rat bastard, and instead leaves a modest, lonely little twenty.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bucky's cat is named Cat.


	3. Chapter 3

"You – whew, I'm still processing. You were mad at this guy you barely know because you thought that he might have thought of you as his good deed for the day, so you tried  _punishing_  him by daring him to eat all of his food? While you stood there and watched? You've got to admit that's kind of kinky, Rogers. At least in the neighborhood of kinky." 

Steve shrugs, hiding a sheepish smile behind his coffee cup. "He was game." 

Sam claps his hands together. "Okay. Just needed that clarified. Now, backtrack: I don't know how to tell you this in a way that your self-deprecating little brain will understand, but uh, the guy wants you. You're my best friend and I love you dearly, but I'm not going to lick syrup off a plate because you  _told me to._ " 

"That time at Cindy Ford's party I told you to put on her bra and knock on her parents' door to ask where they kept the –" 

"I was drunk!" Sam throws up his arms. "And eighteen. That is a low blow." 

"Yeah, that was pretty mean," Steve snickers. "I still have the pictures to prove how mean I am." 

"You're bluffing," but Sam's face says he's not sure. Steve will just have to let him keep guessing. 

"Even assuming he's attracted to me – and that's a big assumption – " Sam rolls his eyes. "Hey, anybody can flirt. Even on the off chance he's attracted to me – you keep doing that and your face is going to get stuck that way – he's probably got fifty or so people already in his pocket. Instead of a little black book he probably has a catalogue." 

"No one's that fine," Sam scoffs. 

"Oh, he is," Steve says, extra dreamily, leaning his chin on his fist, to be extra annoying. "You know how hard it is to impress me. Imagine what you think a Disney prince would look like in real life – that's him. But hot. Okay, maybe not the most informative description. Imagine a lumberjack, but beautiful. No, that's not quite it either. Let me think – " 

"Okay, okay, go be horny on your own couch." Sam smacks him in the head with a throw pillow and they go back to arguing over which movie they're going to watch for their monthly movie night. They've been debating it for two hours already but that's half the fun. 

*** 

Steve would kick himself in the head if it was physically possible, but he might sort of have a crush. The beginnings of a crush. The first small, crackling sparks of a crush. 

And, unfortunately, he acts accordingly. 

"Steve, where you going looking all handsome!" his elderly neighbor from across the hall says as he passes her as he's leaving for work. "Got a hot date?" 

"Yes, Lucia, with a kitchen. Super steamy." 

She waves a hand at him. "Oh, you're no fun. You need to get you a pretty young thing, gimme something to rag you about." She squints at him. "You do something to your hair? You did!" She gives him a knowing look. "You've got  _something_ going on." 

"Goodnight, Lucia!" 

Bucky doesn't show that night and Steve does not pout. Belle cackles at his hair that came out more 90s boyband than the artfully messy look he was going for, because she can't possibly be laughing at him pouting, because he's not. His lower lip pushes out like this naturally. 

*** 

A few nights later Steve is shuffling through the grocery store after he gets off, the soles of his feet feeling bruised, when he spots Bucky staring at a box of cereal. He puts it back and picks up another one, staring at it for a few seconds before grabbing the first. And staring at it. 

"Spoiler alert, the toucan dies at the end." 

Bucky's head jerks up at the sound of his voice, and for a second, he looks like a different person. Steve almost apologizes. He looks like someone dangerous, like someone who would skip yelling or punching and get straight to biting your throat out if provoked. But then his eyes soften and his mouth hints at a smile, and okay, it's just Bucky. Steve silently commands the hair on the back of his neck to lie flat. 

"I'm a bigger fan of the silly old rabbit anyway." Bucky finally settles on the first box and sighs. "Painful to watch, huh?" 

"On the contrary," Steve says, letting his eyes wander down and up again. Bucky stands up straighter, his nearly red lips slightly parted. "Want some help?" 

"Uh. Well." Bucky looks at the contents of his basket: the box of Trix. He looks at Steve. "Well . . ." 

Steve piles oranges, milk, eggs, Oreos, asparagus, cashews, a bag of spinach and a pack of chicken into Bucky's basket. Bucky scans the store around them the whole time, eyeballing the eighty-year-old man looking at dog food and the pregnant girl perusing snacks as though they might jump them, nervous energy pouring off of him. More than once Steve notices him raising an arm, letting it hover behind Steve's lower back, never quite touching. 

Nearing the checkout lines, Steve stops walking and leans back into Bucky's hand. Bucky's darting gaze snaps to him and fixes there. His fingers press into Steve's side. It's his flesh hand, and Steve can feel his pulse thrumming wildly through his t-shirt. He must be imagining it, but after a couple seconds it feels like it starts to settle down. 

"Hi," Steve says. 

"Hey." Steve wonders if Bucky looks at everyone this intensely. 

"If you don't have enough for this, feel free to put anything back. I only made an educated guess to what you need." 

"Oh, I have enough," Bucky says. "What do  _you_ need?" 

Steve pauses. What the hell had he even come here for? Oh, right. 

He snaps his fingers. "Ramen." 

They make the trek to the heat-and-eat aisle and Steve grabs six packs of noodles, then regretfully puts one back. 

Bucky is glancing at him out of the corner of his eye. "Those broccoli-flavored ones look pretty good." 

"Mm." 

"Which of these are your favorite?" Bucky indicates the pricier fancy-pants noodles. 

"Don't start." 

"Look at it like a returned favor." 

"Being nice to you isn't a favor." 

"To quote you, 'being nice to you isn't a favor.'" 

Steve glares. Bucky smiles, which is cheating and must be illegal in fifty states. Steve wonders if he would hold it against him if he traced it with his thumb; for artistic reasons, of course. 

Steve ends up coerced into a basket of his own, this time with Bucky putting things in. Garlic bread, bananas, chocolate-covered almonds, kale, yogurt, sweet potatoes, two microwave meals (Steve doesn't have the nerve to tell him he doesn't have a microwave; he'll figure something out), and a bag of fancy-pants noodles. 

"You're trying to fatten me up for some nefarious purpose," Steve mutters as they stack everything onto the conveyor belt. 

"Yeah, see, I've got this wicked idea that maybe if you get food you won't go hungry," Bucky says dryly. 

"You guys are cute," the cashier says. Steve looks at Bucky who's already looking at him. Bucky ducks his head and smiles at the floor. 

When Bucky pulls out his credit card and pays for both their groceries, Steve tries convincing himself the flush of heat in his gut and in his cheeks is guilt. 

They walk out together and Bucky bumps his shoulder against his. 

"You need a ride home?" 

Steve pictures walking the three blocks to his apartment building laden with grocery bags, his feet already throbbing. 

"I'll be alright." 

At that moment, he sees a motorcycle in the parking lot and higher-level thinking abandons him. 

The Harley-Davidson is slick and shiny and a behemoth of a machine, exactly the kind he daydreamed about having as a kid, in some far-off future where he could afford to indulge on a motorcycle. 

"Shit, check out that bike. Scale of one to ten, how much trouble do you think I'd be in if the owner caught me gawking at it?" he asks, already walking towards it. 

"Dunno. Depends who the owner is, I guess," Bucky says, trailing behind him. 

Steve transfers his grocery bags to one hand, determinedly not breathing hard, and carefully runs the back of his knuckles over the gleaming chrome. 

"Holy shit, this is seriously beautiful," he says wistfully. "I always wanted to ride on one of these." 

Bucky reaches into his pocket with his free hand and holds up a ring of keys. 

Steve stares uncomprehendingly for a second, then gapes at him. "You – you're? No fuckin' way. Holy shit." 

"But if you don't need a ride . . ." Bucky says in the most heavy-handed reverse psychology voice ever. 

"I don't  _need_  a ride, but if you're offering . . . I mean, I don't want you to go out of your way or anything."  _Let me on it, let me on it, let me on it_. 

"You're a piece of work, Steve," Bucky tells him. "I wouldn't offer if I didn't want to." 

Bucky zips their groceries into saddlebags on the sides of the bike and picks up the helmet hanging from the handlebar. He lowers it onto Steve's head and fastens the clasp. 

Steve can feel Bucky's hot breath against his face, has to crane up to look him in the eye. Two of Bucky's fingers slide down to his neck and linger there, feeling his heartbeat, he realizes. 

Steve still doesn't know if Disney prince-hot is the most accurate description, but Steve does feel a little bit like magic is being used on him when Bucky smiles down at him. "Excited?" 

"Anticipating," Steve says, pressing unsubtly into his touch. Feeling one or both of their heartbeats thumping under the skin. "Hoping we don't crash into a building and explode." 

"O ye of little faith. I'm a great driver." Bucky takes a step back and Steve refrains from following him, from crowding him against his bike or a nearby car or dragging him down onto the asphalt. He is, above all, a patient man, and used to never getting what he wants. "And for the record," Bucky says. "This isn't a favor. Maybe I just like being nice to you." 

Steve somehow doubts anything can be that simple, but he craves that simplicity like fucking oxygen. 

Bucky slings a leg over the seat and Steve climbs on after, wrapping his arms around Bucky's waist. 

"Hang on," Bucky says, and that's his only warning before the engine revs up and they roar out of the space and onto the road. 

"Holy shit," Steve says just for something to say, fists curling in Bucky's shirt, laughing like he's on a rollercoaster. He gets the strangest urge to bite Bucky's jacket; he watches city lights flash by and imagines the indentations his teeth would leave in the leather, imagines Bucky touching it later when he's alone. 

Steve is still giddily laughing a half hour later when Bucky pulls them to the curb and turns to look at him over his shoulder. Steve can only see the upper half of his face, but by the crinkles at the corners of his eyes, he's smiling. 

"I never asked where you lived." 

Steve points up the street, just a few buildings down. "Right here's fine. That was amazing, Buck, thank you." 

He squeezes Bucky around the middle in a hug and closes his eyes, feeling high and stupid with endorphins. He almost misses it when Bucky hesitatingly curls his metal hand over his arm. 

"You're welcome," he says quietly. His thumb strokes his goosepimpled skin once. "I'm an idiot. You feel like ice." 

Bucky steps down onto the sidewalk and shucks his jacket. 

"Oh no." 

"Oh, yes. Please?" 

Steve actively ignores the hungry thing inside him waking up when Bucky says please in that tone, making those exaggerated sad-puppy eyes. 

"Fine, but only because you're cute," Steve says, shrugging the jacket on. Fuck, it smells like Bucky. This is bad. Very bad. "I'm giving it back the next time I see you," he says warningly. 

"I don't care what you do with it, just let it warm you up." Bucky pauses. "You think I'm cute?" 

"Uh huh," Steve says intelligently. 

Bucky grins as he helps him get his bags. "Aw, shucks." 

Steve beats back the desire to kiss him on the cheek goodnight like Bucky's bringing him home from a date, instead waving as best as he can because his other fingers are gripping the handles of the bags. 

"Well, goodnight."   

"I could help you carry those." 

"No," Steve says quickly. He smiles so Bucky doesn't think he's telling him off or something. "No, I can only handle so much of you being nice to me in one night. I've yet to build up a resistance." 

"Oh, I see. Guess that means I'm just not working hard enough." He gets back on his bike, takes the helmet and puts it on, flipping the visor down. "You'll be sick of me by the time I'm through being nice to you, pal." 

Steve stands there for a minute and watches him ride away, enveloped in Bucky's jacket and his honey-and-gunpowder smell, and holding enough food to feed him for three weeks that he didn't spend a dime on. What the hell? 


	4. Chapter 4

Most people wouldn't think to consider it a skill, but the ability to hold completely still is something Bucky still possesses, and unconsciously slips into from time to time. A fly descends on his chin and still he doesn't move, doesn't even blink.

" _Mrow_."

That brings him back.

He stands from the chair like it had been scalding. Traffic is a colorful blur and people walk and yell and ride bikes on the street below, a normal Brooklyn midafternoon. Koshka had pawed open the door to the balcony and stands at his feet, tail curling around him like a question mark.

"Still alive, Koshka," he tells the cat, shooing him back inside and following him, leaning heavily against the door for a few beats after he shuts and bolts it.

"I'm in New York. It's 2018," he tells himself like his therapist suggested he do.

On the coffee table on the other side of the room, his phone buzzes. It's a text from Becca.

_might_ _b_ _knocked_ _up!!!! w_ _atch Thing 1 & Thing 2 for me???_

He smiles and holds the phone against his chest. s _end them over._ _i_ _ve_ _monsterproofed_ _the place._

***

"A hundredy-six, a hundredy-seven . . ."

Bucky keeps the metal arm behind his back when he does pushups, and he's fairly certain the little rascals sitting on him are coloring on it with markers.

"Unca Buggy, am I gonna have muscles like you when I'm big?"

"Maybe so, little man. Either way, you're going to be way cooler than your dumb old Uncle Buggy."

Olivia is weaving something into his hair. Probably the pipe cleaners they'd been playing with earlier. At least it's not gum.

"When I'm big, I'm gonna be a astronaut," Ky says confidently, bearing down hard back and forth with his Sharpie in the crook of Bucky's elbow. "Or a aminal doctor."

"You can be anything you want to be."

"That's what Mommy says. I wanna do a lotta stuff."

Olivia laughs and smacks the back of his head with her chubby hands. "Worm on head!"

"Oh no!" Bucky carefully lowers himself to the floor and the kids scramble away, squealing with laughter, while Bucky paws the tie from his hair and shakes it out, prying the pink pipe cleaner free. "Where did this worm come from?" He holds it to his face and asks it, "Where did you come from, you evil worm?"

"That isn't  _really_ a worm!" Ky says. "It's a craft thingy."

"Oh, is that what it is? I was sure it was an evil worm." He stands and scoops them up, one in each arm. "Okay, monkeys, time for a snack, then it's naptime."

"Snack! Snack!"

He sets them down at the kitchen table, Olivia in her high chair, and gives them their favorite. Once they're Eggo'd out, it's mere minutes before they're flopped out on the couch, Koshka perched on the backrest like a sentinel.

No sooner than they're asleep than the front door is opening and Becca sweeps in, beaming. She nods and walks into Bucky's arms.

"Ahh," she screams in a whisper, bouncing up and down on the balls of her feet like when she was six and got her first A+. "Dr. Nelson says everything's fine, and I'm going back in three weeks to find out the due date. Oh my God, Bucky! I'm just going to keep popping them out like rabbits."

"Very cute, very smart rabbits," Bucky says, his hands on her shoulders. "You're gonna be fine, Becs."

"Thank you so much for watching them." She hugs him again. She's done that a lot ever since he got back, maybe afraid he'll disappear again if she lets go. He hugs her back just as tight; if you'd told him ten years ago that he'd get to see his baby sister again and get to know her kids, he would have thought it was a sick joke.

"You know I love those rugrats like they're mine," he tells her. "Bring them over when you have your next appointment, or you and Richard need a break, whenever. I'm not going anywhere."

"Hey, don't tempt me, bub," she says into his shoulder before she pulls away. "All I want to do when I get home from work these days is sleep. You're gonna have a lot of late nights."

"I welcome it," Bucky says, a cheeky tilt to his chin, a parody of himself when he was younger.

"You won't be saying that when they're jumping off the furniture and smacking each other upside the head." She gives him a Look, poking a finger playfully into his side. "You're glowing, you know. You pregnant too?"

"Just my usual sunny disposition."

"Oh, is that what you call it?"

"Mhm."

"Now I know you're hiding something," she laughs. "Don't tell me now, I'll get to the bottom of it. I love a good mystery."

***

He sees Steve as soon as he walks in. He's leaning over a table setting down someone's plate, smiling at what one of the customers is saying. Bucky's jacket is tied around his waist.

The teenage waitress walks him to his seat and hands him a menu. "Your server will be right with you," she says sweetly before walking away. The diner is packed tonight, and a few minutes pass. Bucky stares at the opaque black sky through the window and gets lost in unintelligible thought.

"I like the . . . dragon.  _Is_  that a dragon?"

Bucky looks up. He had forgotten he'd left the house without long-sleeves on. That almost never happens, but he didn't want to smudge Ky's drawing.

"My nephew's the artist," Bucky says. He props his right arm on the table. "I think he was trying to make it match this one."

Steve peers at his tattoos with interest, and Bucky wonders if he'd worn the jacket after that night.

"Oh," Steve says when he follows his gaze, and Bucky wonders if he can blush on command, it's so instantaneous. "See, I got some yogurt on the sleeve and I don't know anything about leather, so I was just going to tell you so I can take it to the cleaners and I can get it back to you as soon as –"

"Steve."

"Hm?"

"It's okay." It's almost too okay. The image of Steve at home, having a snack, curled up in his jacket, is enough to make  _him_ blush. He has the kind of resting face that makes him look like he's seconds away from committing a deranged murder at any moment, and he fears the smile he's wearing is even worse; his cheeks hurt, unused to working these muscles so often. "Honest. It's not a big deal. Keep it, if you want," he says, over-casual.

"Keep it," Steve repeats, then huffs a laugh. "You'll give me the shirt off your back next."

"You asking or telling?"

" _Bucky_." He moves on to his other customers, shaking his head.

When he returns with his promised biscuits and gravy, Steve sets everything down slowly, then continues to stand there, hands fluttering from his sides to his hips and back.

"Bucky," he says eventually, "What are you doing tomorrow night?"

His heart is in his mouth. "Whatever you're doing?" he asks hopefully.

A crooked smile cracks through the nervousness. "Okay, then. We're going to the movies. The Paradiso on 10th at eight."

"Yes, sir," Bucky says jokingly, and immediately realizes he didn't really mean it as a joke. It didn't sound like one and he doesn't want it to be.

Steve apparently realizes this too, thank fuck. "Is that how it is?"

"That's how it is."

"Alright, Buck. Eight o'clock."

***

Bucky hasn't been to the movies since he was ten or eleven. Once he had the choice he simply hadn't wanted to. The idea of sitting in a dark enclosed room full of strangers wasn't something he thought would be fun, or wise.

He wouldn't mind spending every day with Steve, though, and he thinks he can suck it up for the chance to sit beside him for a couple of hours.

Steve lays a hand on his bicep and steers him through the crowded lobby. The faceless figures around them are too loud and too many and  _too close_ , but the touch is grounding and the swell of panic slacks off as he lets his mind go blank, letting Steve take him where he needs to go.

"Popcorn, candy, the whole works, whaddya say?" Steve asks him when they're in line for the concession stand. He keeps his voice low, a focal point in a solid wave of noise. 

"Just a soda for me, I'm really not hungry, but get whatever you want." Bucky reaches for his wallet, but Steve stops him, his fingers on his wrist.

"My treat."

"I could at least–"

"I asked, I'm paying," Steve says firmly. 

"Stubborn little fucker," Bucky says, looking at him from his peripheral vision before returning to studying the room. He hears Steve chuckle at his side.

"Yeah, that's what it says on my resume." The hand still on Bucky's wrist slides up to his shoulder. "Bucky."

Bucky turns to him, and when their eyes lock it's a little easier to block out everything else around them.

"Are you okay?" Steve asks. "I understand if you want to go, with or without me."

"I'm fine, Steve, it's not you. I want to be here, I just . . ."  _Have never been on a real date in my life_ _, unless you c_ _an call_ _blowjobs in gas station bathrooms or_ _a_ _quick_ _fuck_ _in an alley_ _or_ _honeypot_ _assignment_ _s_ _that ended_ _with_ _snapping_ _someone's neck_ _a date_ _._ "I get real nervous around crowds."

Steve nods, considering. "Ignore everything else. Just look at me. There's no one else here."

"No one else here, right." Without meaning to, he glances around again.

Steve takes his chin in his hand and turns his face back to him. "There's only you and me."

Bucky swallows. "Yeah."

"You good?"

"I'm good," Bucky breathes.

Steve lets go of him and gets his money out of his pocket, or rather out of Bucky's jacket's pocket, and gets him a large cherry Coke and a small popcorn for himself and then they head over to get their tickets, Bucky trailing him like a puppy.

"Anything you absolutely don't want to see?" Steve asks him.

"You didn't have a movie in mind?"

"Not really, no," Steve says, grinning. "Thought it'd be good enough to get you alone."

"You dog," Bucky mock gasps, then looks up at the list of now-playings. "Huh."

An action flick with Brad Pitt he read somewhere has more than one instance of beheading and a horror movie involving cannibalism, and he's already unwillingly shaking his head no. The only options left are an arthouse romance film he's already seen where they both died in the end that he hadn't cared for and  _The Wizard of Oz_.

"You like kids movies?" he asks ruefully.

Steve grips the back of his neck and squeezes lightly. "You kidding? That was my favorite when I was a kid. I was hoping you'd choose that."

The tension in him seeps away at the sincerity in Steve's voice, at the gentle kneading his bony fingers are doing to his neck. "I mean, it's a classic, right?"

"That's right," Steve says warmly, and just like that they're in the line for  _Oz_ and Steve's hand is back on his arm.

He'd chosen the movie. He'd decided, and hadn't even broken a sweat.

He  _does_  break into a sweat as he follows Steve into the empty back row and they're sitting thisclose, their knees knocking together. Steve wraps an arm around his shoulders and tugs him even closer still, leaning up to whisper in his ear.

"You'll tell me when you're ready to leave," he says. It isn't a question.

Bucky nods and Steve's lips inadvertently brush against the shell of his ear; he shudders. "I will," he says shakily, and surprisingly, he's telling the truth.

"Good. Good, Bucky." He sits back but keeps his arm where it is and tosses a handful of popcorn into his mouth. "Now watch this and tell me a singing lion and Judy Garland don't beat out some phony blockbusters any day of the week."

The house lights dim down and the previews begin, and Bucky notices Steve sneaking glances at the drink in his hand. The salty popcorn has gotten to him, he figures, holding the Coke out for him to take. Instead Steve leans over and takes a sip, smiling around the straw.

"Thanks," Steve says, licking his lips before turning back to the screen.

Bucky wonders what would happen if he put his hand on Steve's knee. Is that what he's waiting for, for him to make the first move? He looks around; there's next to no one in the theater save a group in the very front row and a couple near the front. If they're quiet, maybe he could . . .

But no. He likes Steve, a lot, and he can't help but associate anything remotely related to sex with fleeting moments with people he'll never see again; he doesn't want to rush this . . . whatever it is. He'll let Steve set the pace. And anyway, anyone could walk in at any moment and he's only but so daring.

Steve lays his head on his shoulder.

He smells like popcorn and aftershave, something headily masculine and a little like green tea. The hand on Bucky's other shoulder moves to his neck, his knuckles stroking so lightly it tickles.

"I kind of couldn't believe it when you said yes," he says quietly.

Bucky turns his head. His cheek is pressed to Steve's temple but neither of them move away. "It ain't obvious how into you I am? Feels like I'm wearing a flashing sign."

"Yeah, well. I like having things spelled out."

"I l-i-k-e y-o-u, S-t-e-v-e. Better?"

"I think I'm beginning to get it," Steve says contemplatively, rubbing his chin. "Maybe you should say it a couple more times, though, so I know I've got it right."

"U R N ass."

"Loud and clear." He feels Steve smile against his shoulder.

The movie starts up, familiar orchestral swell of the opening credits, familiar sepia Kansas scene. There had been a time when he would have been able to quote each line word for word. He soaks up Steve's nearness and halfway pays attention to the screen.

"I went as the Tin Man on Halloween two years straight," he whispers against Steve's hair as the twister spins the house through the air. "Don't know why, but I fuckin' loved that guy." He doesn't mention that he doesn't actually remember it.

Steve hums. "I went as the Scarecrow once. We coulda matched."

"Something to keep in mind for next year," Bucky says. "You think Party City sells Sexy Tin Man costumes?"

"I think you already have that covered," Steve says under his breath. "Wrap yourself in aluminum foil and call it a day."

Bucky snorts. This guy.

Tentatively, he leans his head against Steve's and holds his breath as the house touches down and Dorothy opens the door, the grainy world suddenly soaked in brilliant color.

"People in the '30s must have shit themselves," he whispers. Steve says something too low to make out and rubs his cheek against his shirt.

After the Munchkins have sung their song and Dorothy and Toto have skipped a little ways down the yellow brick road, Bucky nudges Steve.

"There's you," he says when the Scarecrow appears.

Steve begins to snore softly.

"I know you didn't . . . Steve?" Bucky laughs to himself; Steve is fast asleep.

Bucky sits stock still for an hour and a half, and when the credits roll and the other moviegoers have filed out he continues to sit there, his lips brushing Steve's temple, and endeavors to sit there until they get thrown out or Steve wakes up, whichever comes first.

"So I swear I wasn't following you. I'm a snoop with morals."

Bucky's head whips up. Becca is standing in the aisle beside him, holding a sleeping Olivia against her chest.

"Richie and I are having a date night. Looks like you had the same idea." She's grinning like when she caught him kissing Mary Holbrook in fourth grade. He blinks hard at the sudden memory. "Is this why you've been going around looking like you won the lottery?"

He can't find it in himself to deny it.

"I'll leave you to it, but I want a name and details ASAP, Mr. Barnes." She makes the I'm-watching-you sign at him and walks out, and Bucky figures he must be losing his touch if he didn't notice anyone else enter the theater after them. Then again, he'd never had a distraction quite as alluring as Steve.

At least twenty minutes pass – miraculously, no one shoos them out with a broom – before Steve starts to shift beside him.

"Bucky," he mumbles, voice rough.

"Hey, sleepyhead."

Steve jerks upright and looks at him, eyes wide. The hair on the side of his head is sticking out at a ninety-degree angle. "Whassa . . .? Fuck, did I fall asleep?"

"Yeah." Bucky smooths down his hair with one hand and hides a smile behind the other. "You snore."

"I'm sorry, Bucky. Shit." He rubs his eyes. "I did not mean to do that. It's not like you were boring me or anything. One second we're talking, the next nothing."

"You needed to get your sleep out. I'm not complaining. It was cute."

Steve blinks at him, then starts to smile. "Aw, you think I'm cute?" he says, repeating Bucky's words.

"The cutest." Bucky itches to kiss him, he's so close, his lips are right there. What is he waiting for?

Steve's gaze flicks from his eyes to his mouth and back. His hand closes over Bucky's wrist, the metal one, and brings his hand to his lips. He presses a kiss to the back, his lips soft and warm as Bucky imagined they'd be, and the overheat sensors in his arm start up with a whir.

"Is that supposed to happen?" Steve asks, voice a little panicked.

"Don't worry about it," Bucky says reassuringly. "It does that all the time," he lies.

Steve takes his hand as they walk out to Bucky's bike and doesn't let go until he drops him off in front of his building. Bucky holds the back of his left hand to his mouth the whole way home.


	5. Chapter 5

Alright, in hindsight he probably shouldn't have called a John Cena-lookalike a piss-ugly fuckface, but at least the woman whose wrist he'd been grabbing had gotten away.

Steve rolls to his feet, but the bastard is too quick. He tries to land a punch to the man's jaw but he deftly dodges and hits him square in the mouth and Steve goes down again. A series of quick, hard kicks are delivered to his ribs. His mouth opens to groan as it feels like one has fractured, but the only sound from him is a huff of air.

"Mind your own business next time, little bitch," the guy spits, rearing back to strike another blow.

He shouts in pain instead. There comes a sickening crunch.

Steve tries to get up but his side protests. He can only turn his head in time to see his attacker's throat getting grabbed by – oh shit.

Bucky spits something in what sounds like Russian before his metal arm launches Walmart John Cena across the lot where he lands gracelessly on his back with a loud  _umph_ , all the breath knocked out of his lungs and his broken nose gushing blood. Knockoff John Cena stays down for a minute, gasping for air, before scrambling to his feet and hauling ass.

"My – hero. Ow, Christ." His side aches fiercely.

"Don’t try to get up. How bad is it?" Bucky kneels beside him and looks him over. He pulls a handkerchief – an honest-to-God handkerchief – from his pocket and gives it to Steve, indicating his split lip. Then he presses his right hand to Steve's ribcage, lightly, and Steve cries out. "Shh, shh, okay. Feels like you might have a cracked rib or two." He lifts the hem of his shirt and hisses. "That, or some godawful bruising."

"No hospitals," Steve says urgently.

"No hospitals," Bucky says soothingly, running his hand through Steve's sweaty hair. "Nothing they can do for busted ribs anyway. Okay, ah. . ." He looks around like he might find a helpful pamphlet posted somewhere: So You've Got The Shit Beaten Out Of You In The Lot Behind A 7-Eleven. "Your building is close, but can you make it?"

"'Just 'round the corner," Steve bites out. "I c'n walk."

"Sure, pal, and I can do the can-can on hot lava. I'd bring the bike around but I don't want to leave you here." He chews his lip for a few seconds. "Okay. I'm gonna help you up now, you ready?"

"Yeah," Steve says. When Bucky scoops him up bridal style he gasps, "Oh absolutely – not."

Bucky ignores him. "You got painkillers at home? You're gonna need them."

"No, don't. Think so. Fuck."

"Okay, hang tight," and that's how Bucky jogs into the 7-Eleven carrying Steve like he's walking him across the threshold. Steve glowers at the staring cashier until the pain makes him grimace and hide his face in Bucky's neck.

Steve directs him where to go, holding his breath because every inhale makes the pain that much worse. If he thought being carried around on the street was humiliating it's nothing to the embarrassment of being carried up the rickety stairs and into his moldy apartment and gingerly laid onto the holey, moth-eaten couch he'd salvaged from the dump. A roach scuttles across Bucky's shoe as he mutters to himself about motherfucking meathead bastards.

He disappears for a minute into the kitchen and comes back with a cup of tap water and hovers until Steve takes a handful of Ibuprofen. He also has a bag of frozen peas.

"Oh hey, where'd you find that?" Steve asks.

"Back of the freezer. It'll help."

Steve lays it over his ribs and after the initial icy burn, it does.

Bucky fetches the first aid kit, handily kept on the windowsill because this shit happens pretty frequently, and grabs a wooden stool from the corner, dragging it to the couch. He cups his hand over Steve's less-bruised cheek and assesses the cuts and scrapes.

"You're gonna need stitches," he says. "And you’re going to have a black eye by morning. Fucker did a number on you. Who the hell was he, anyway?"

"Just some coked-out asshole roughing up a girl," Steve says tiredly. "There's always some asshole roughing up somebody who can't fight back."

Bucky pushes his bangs back from his eyes, careful not to touch the cut just above his eyebrow. His fingertips are a paradox, calloused and soft. "And you can, huh."

"I was going easy on him."

"Sure you were." Bucky huffs a humorless laugh. "You'd'a gone any easier and you would've been dead."

Steve should be pissed at his tone; his difficulty defending others because of his size and muscle-proof body is a hurt that runs deep. But Bucky won't meet his eyes and hasn't since they entered the apartment. Once he's put disinfectant on all the open wounds and gently scrubbed the dirt out, Steve notes that his hands are shaking.

"Bucky?" Steve says, uneasy. Bucky is staring very hard at his cheek, though Steve's sure he's cleaned the cut there by now. A muscle jumps in Bucky's forehead. "Bucky."

Bucky drops the sterile wipe and cradles the sides of Steve's face. Steve is thrown at the tears brimming his eyes.

"Are you here? Are you real?"

"Yeah, Buck, I'm right here," Steve says bemusedly, fingertips digging into Bucky's forearms. "I'm a little busted up, but I've had worse."

"Part of me thought you were dead. And still do. I got one side of my brain still back in that alley, holding your dead body. Holding a hundred dead bodies." He cuts himself off and leans back, takes a deep breath. "I've gotta stitch you up," he says abruptly, turning back to the first aid kit.

"Bucky, c'mere a second." Bucky turns back to him uncertainly, eyes still wet. Steve beckons him. "Don't just leave it like that. Come here."

Very slowly, his head down and shoulders hunched like he's expecting to be punished, Bucky perches on the edge of the couch cushion by Steve. Steve suddenly and passionately wants to kill everyone who's put that skittish kicked-dog look in this man's eyes. He pulls Bucky down by his collar and Bucky reaches out to brace himself against the arm of the couch behind Steve's head. Steve takes his other hand and lays it over his chest.

"Heart's beating. All in working order." He brings the hand on his chest up to his mouth and speaks into his palm. "I'm breathing. This is real."

Bucky's chest heaves and he bows his head lower, his face hidden. "Wouldn't be the first time my senses played tricks on me.”

"Can you trust me?"

Bucky looks up. "Yes," he says without hesitation.

"Then trust me when I tell you this is real. I'm okay. You're okay."

Bucky traces the edge of his mouth, very lightly touching the gash in his lip. " _Are_  you okay?"

"I'm swell," Steve drawls. "Last time I got in a fight I was laid up for weeks with three broken bones. This is a cakewalk."

"That's not real comforting, Steve." He sighs and sits back, takes up a needle from the kit and starts in on the particularly bad cuts. They're both quiet for a while, Steve at a loss for the right thing to say.

When all of the wounds are closed up, Bucky surprises him by leaning down and kissing his forehead.

"All done. You’ve been a brave patient."

"Thanks, doc," Steve says with a little smile. Bucky’s kind of pale, but his eyes have lost their haunted look. Or some of it, at least.

Bucky moves to the end of the couch and unties Steve's laces, tugs his boots off and puts them on the floor.

"Is there anything else I can do?"

Steve looks at his hands in his lap. "Could I borrow your phone?"

Bucky pulls a cell phone out of his pocket, turns it on and gives it to him.

"I have to call into work,” Steve says, mostly to himself. “I might have to take off a few days."

Bucky's eyebrows shoot up. "Your ribs are cracked, Steve, you might have to take off for a few  _weeks._ "

"My bosses are lenient, but no one's going to be that lenient, I don't think. I'm just a fuckin' waiter." He lets his head fall back with a groan. "I can't afford to lose this job, Buck."

Bucky's quiet beside him. "Call first, see what they say."

Steve does, glad he'd had the foresight to memorize the number, because Belle and Joe don't believe in websites.

"Belle and Joe's," Joe says gruffly.

"Joe, it's Steve."

"Heya kid, what's up? Ain't had enough of us for one day?"

"I don't think I'll be able to come in for a couple weeks." Bucky nudges him and he waves him off. "Probably more like three. I, ah, got into a scuffle and got some cracked ribs outta the deal."

"Shit, kid! You left here, what, an hour ago?"

"Just about, yeah."

"Well, don't worry about anything. Your job'll still be here. These college kids might have to start doing a little work around here, but I don't think it'll hurt 'em."

Steve feels suddenly like crying. It's been a long day. It's been a hell of a long year. "Really?"

"Yeah, yeah. I'll have your check mailed to you unless you have someone to pick it up for you, but we can go over the details later. Right now rest up, and feel better soon, Steve."

Steve ends the call and hands the phone back to Bucky. "If you tell me to keep it I'm gonna start bawling," he says, and Bucky laughs aloud.

"Can't have that," he says, pocketing it.

Steve pats the couch beside him. "You can sit down. Or leave, whichever." He raises an eyebrow. "Or should I tell you?"

Bucky stops literally wringing his hands. "Tell me to stay."

"Contradictory," Steve slurs accusingly, but nods to the couch. Bucky lifts his legs and sits on the other end, then lowers them across his lap. "Would you be too offended if I fell asleep on you again?"

"I'd be thrilled. You look like you're going to pass out from exhaustion on a good day."

"Such a charmer," Steve says without any heat.

"It's the truth." Bucky circles his ankle with one hand and drums his fingers against the bone, gaze focused on them. "You don't have to work, you know."

Steve groans and throws a hand over his eyes. "I know, Buck, I'm on my feet eight hours a day because it builds character."

"I could . . . I could take care of you. I want to."

Steve spreads his fingers and looks at him through the cracks. Bucky's head is still down.

"Look at me," Steve orders. Bucky does, eyes flicking away a couple times before they fix to Steve's. "What are you saying, exactly? Like a sugar baby situation?"

"You can call it whatever you want. It doesn’t have to be . . . I mean I would never expect you to . . . We wouldn't have to . . ."

"Fuck?" Steve guesses.

He both feels and watches Bucky's whole body twitch.

"Uh. Yeah."

Steve digs the ball of his foot into Bucky's thigh. "Would you like to?"

Bucky twists his face away, his hand on his ankle gone clammy. "I . . ."

"Look at me, Bucky," he coaxes, waiting until Bucky obeys. "What if I wanted to?"

Bucky's eyes flutter shut for a long second. "God, Steve."

"I'm just saying, don't leave it completely off the table unless  _you_ want to." As he talks, he rubs up and down Bucky's leg with his foot, watching his pupils expand until the gray is eclipsed by black. Bucky’s hand moves to the top of his foot and rests there, not applying any pressure, just holding it there as Steve rubs his leg; Steve isn’t sure if he’s even aware he’s done it. "I'm not sold on the rest of it, though. I don't want to depend on anybody."

"You could still work,” Bucky says quickly. “For as long as you want to, wherever. But you wouldn't have to. Just think about it?"

He instinctively rebels at the thought of it, terms like "kept boy" and images of people in mindbogglingly expensive lingerie locked away in penthouses like pampered pets coming to mind. But Bucky is so earnest, and if Steve steps back from his initial aversion and lets himself look at it less objectively and more at how it makes him feel, he thinks it might be . . . intriguing. Something he might be interested in getting used to, anyway.

"I'll think about it,” he promises.

Bucky reaches forward, grabbing his hand and squeezing it. "Thank you."

Steve ignores the little thrill that goes through him at those words; at the way Bucky is looking at him; at what else Bucky might thank him for if Steve offered it. It’s a heady feeling.

“Don’t thank me just yet,” he warns. “You’ve still got to entertain the invalid.”

He fishes his sketchbook out from beneath the cushion he’s lying on and casts about for a pencil, cursing yesterday’s self for dozing off and dropping it God knows where.

Bucky’s metal hand comes into view, the pencil between his fingers.

“Almost sat on it earlier,” he says with a smile. “You just live for danger, dontcha?”

“Pencils on the couch, roughnecks on the street. I keep it interesting. I wake up every morning and ask myself, How am I going to get stabbed today? Keeps me on my toes.”

Bucky barks a laugh, slapping a hand over his chest. “Don’t tell me that! I’m already starting to go gray.”

“I’ve lasted twenty-nine years somehow, you have nothing to worry about. I’m that one sock you find every once in a while in the laundry, a hole in the toe and no match. You’ll never get rid of me.”

“Hope not,” Bucky says to Steve’s feet, smiling.

“Hey, where you been all my life, you fuckin’ cornball?” Steve says; he’d started to return to an old-ish drawing but quickly realized it was pointless, his attention hopelessly elsewhere. He turns to a fresh page and starts in on Bucky’s cheekbone. “Turn to me a little. Exactly like that.”

“Only if you get my good side.” Bucky’s eyes are the brightest thing in the room. Steve has them and his forehead and nose and part of his lips down before Bucky speaks again. “I was born here in Brooklyn, but I moved around a lot.”

“Army kid?” Steve asks sympathetically. He’d bounced around a few times until he was eleven; he and his mother had come back to New York to bury his father and they’d just never left.

“Something like that.”

By now there are two Buckys, one blinking, watching him over the top of the sketchbook, the other staring out from the page, a pensive smile on his lead face. Nothing has come so naturally to Steve in years as the shadows in the planes of Bucky’s face or the dimple in his chin.

The afternoon bleeds into evening; Bucky tells him stories about his sister's kids and the misadventures of giving his cat a stuffed animal.

"Fuzz  _all_ over the apartment," Bucky says over Steve's laughter. "Fuzz, bunny skin, bunny tail on the nightstand, button eyes on the kitchen counter . . . It was like a crime scene. A child's nightmare. It was like if they made a slasher movie for Nickelodeon and the rabbit’s name was Tom and Tom had had a wife and kids at home."

He’s the most animated Steve’s ever seen him, gesturing with his hands, acting out the time the kids had tried to convince him there was a “burgerler” hiding in the apartment with them who’d eaten all the cookies from the jar, and they’d led him around from room to room hunting down the culprit even as they started to feel sicker and sicker.

He also explains that he'd been on his way to see Steve at the diner when he'd heard the telltale sounds of a scuffle near where he'd parked, not knowing that Steve's shift had already ended. That he was so close to not being there makes Bucky start to retreat into himself again, so Steve quickly changes the subject.

“I wanna thank you for being there for me today, Buck,” he says, and when Bucky starts to protest: “No, I mean you playing nurse and then staying with me all day so I wouldn’t be bored. You didn’t have to do that. Not everyone would have.”

“You make it sound like some burden,” Bucky says softly. “I want to spend time with you.” He pokes a finger into his leg. “And if your hobby is getting banged up by fuckin’ John Cena-lookalikes I’ll just have to make mine looking after you afterwards, and I’m alright with that.”

There are a million things Steve wants to say to that, but he doesn’t have the words. So he settles for “He really did look like John Cena, didn’t he?”

Soon, it’s full night beyond the window, and Bucky has begun glancing at it, shifting restlessly where he sits.

“It’s getting late,” Steve says. “You should head home. I’ll be alright.”

Bucky is visibly relieved, but the worried line between his eyes doesn’t disappear.

“I don't like the thought of leaving you alone. Is there someone who can stay with you?"

Steve considers stumbling through the explanation that he’s never had anyone over to his shitty, probably radioactive apartment, not even his best friend, but changes his mind. If Bucky’s good enough to ignore what a dump his place is, he won’t complain about it.

“I swear I’ll be fine,” he says. “If you want, you can check in tomorrow, and if I’m really bad off, I’ll call my friend Sam. Deal?”

Bucky sighs. “Still don’t like it, but okay. Deal. You hungry?”

He is, but his mind jumps to the sad state of his food stock: he only has what Bucky bought for him, and that’s dwindling fast. 

“Nah.”

“Is there anything else I can get you to make you more comfortable?”

“You’ve already done enough, Buck. After you go I’m just going to put myself to bed – Hey!”

Bucky has picked him up again.

“Bucky, seriously?” Steve scrabbles at his shoulders for something to hold onto. Now that he’s not so addled with pain, he can really feel what he’s only figured to before to be true: Bucky is  _ripped_.

“I ate all my vegetables when I was your age, whippersnapper,” Bucky says and oh God, did he say that out loud? “Yes, you said that out loud.” Steve clamps a hand over his mouth.

He carries him into the bathroom and holds him up in front of the sink. “It’s going to be hell to be upright for a while,” he tells him. “You need to do anything to get ready for bed, do it while I’m here.”

“I have to pee,” Steve says around his toothbrush, looking at Bucky’s reflection in the mirror.

“So sit on the toilet. I’ll stand outside the door.”

Steve grumbles as he finishes with his teeth and Bucky hauls him over to the toilet before walking out.

“This is embarrassing,” he mutters, head in his hands.

“I’ve seen a lot worse,” Bucky calls on the other side. “This doesn’t even register on the embarrassing scale, Steve.”

Steve wonders what could be more embarrassing than this and shudders; it must have been truly awful.

When he’s done Bucky takes him first to the sink to wash his hands, then to the kitchen to take some more pain meds and drink down a glass of water, and finally to his bedroom where he sets him on the bed and helps him into a clean shirt and out of his jeans.

“This isn’t what I had in mind when I thought about you getting me out of my clothes,” Steve blurts as Bucky kneels in front of him to tug the cuffs of his pants off. He puts his hand back over his mouth. “I should really just keep this here, huh?”

Bucky smiles but doesn’t say anything at first. He sweeps Steve’s legs onto the bed and eases him onto his back before tucking him in.

“What  _did_ you have in mind?”

Steve grins and tugs the blanket up over his face. “You can probably guess.”

“I’m not that imaginative. Fill me in.”

Steve throws the blanket off and pulls a face at him. Bucky shrugs innocently.

“Something sickeningly romantic,” Steve says, “And also you undid my zipper with your teeth and beyond that I plead the fifth.”

Bucky taps his lips with his index finger. “Hmm. I think that can be arranged.”

“You’re killin’ me, Buck.”

“I’m serious,” Bucky says. “This is how I’d do it. First I’d beg you for it, and you’d tell me no, no you can’t and I’d beg some more until finally you’d say oh alright, it’s not like your mouth’s doing anything worthwhile anyway. You’d lie back on the bed with your arms behind your head, barely interested, and I’d start to undo your pants. You’d slap my hand so hard it would sting, and you’d say not with your hands, I don’t know where they’ve been. So I’d undo your buttons one by one with my teeth, next your zipper, and then I’d take your pants off with just my mouth. You wouldn’t help me. You’d laugh at me. You’d say – Steve, what’s wrong?”

Steve points at the top drawer of his nightstand, mouthing “My inhaler.”

Bucky grabs it, shakes it and gives it to him and after puffing on it a few times Steve collapses back with a huge inhale.

“Warn a guy next time.”

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, are you okay?”

“I’m fine, fine. Little worked up, that’s all it is.” He takes some long, deep breaths that make his ribs feel like they’re on fire and stares at the ceiling instead of Bucky’s worried expression. After he’s fully gotten his breath back he turns to Bucky with a smirk. “Jesus  _Christ_. You put some thought into that.”

“Ah . . .” Bucky laughs at himself. “I might be a little more imaginative than I let on.”

“Might be,” Steve agrees. “I’d ask you to continue but I’m kind of a danger to myself right now.”

“I’ll save my place,” Bucky says. “Well, I’ve told you your bedtime story and nearly killed you.” He gets to his feet and leans down to smooth the blanket out over Steve. “I’ll get outta your hair. Are you sure you’re going to be alright on your own?”

“I’ll be fine, Buck. I’ll be  _asleep_.” He reaches up and touches the barely-there stubble on Bucky’s cheek. “Do I get a goodnight kiss?”

“Do you guarantee you won’t need your inhaler again?” Bucky retorts. But he closes the distance between them and presses a chaste kiss to the corner of his smiling mouth. “Night, Steve.”

“Goodnight, Bucky.”

Bucky opens his bedroom door, turning back and giving a little wave that makes his heart swell, and then Steve listens to him move through the apartment and the hall door open and shut. Within minutes, he’s dreaming of Bucky’s smiling gray eyes and his soft, calloused fingertips.

***

“Please, Steve? Please? I want – I want it so bad. Can I? Please?”

Bucky’s on his knees in front of him, Steve’s hand in his hair holding him at arm’s length, Steve completely clothed and he completely naked, his cock hard and straining against his stomach.

“I deserve it,” Bucky growls. “Please, Steve, fucking give it to me–”

There’s a knock on the door and Steve’s eyes fly open.

He’s sweating in bed, his blankets kicked off sometime during the night, and by the light coming through the window, it’s seven or eight o’clock. He starts to stand and curses as his ribs throb in pain.

“Shit, shit, shit . . .” Steve waddles to the bathroom and throws on a threadbare bathrobe to cover up the wet stain in the front of his boxers and goes to answer the front door.

A man in a uniform stands there with a box and a plastic bag. “Delivery for a Steve Rogers.”

“That’s me,” Steve says dazedly.

“Sign here, please.” He’s handed a clipboard and signs his name on autopilot, sure he’s still asleep.

“Thanks, enjoy your day!” the man says. Steve takes the stuff and closes the door, wandering to the kitchen table in a surreal haze. Inside the bag is a packet of a fork-spoon-knife combo and little packs of butter and jelly, as well as a clear container full of food. There’s a sticky note on the lid.

_Never can go wrong with eggs and_ _toast - B_

He checks the name on the label just to be sure before slicing the box open with a knife. Inside is a smaller box containing an iPhone. There’s a note beneath it. Of course there is.

 _Not being pushy with the sugar baby situation, but you really need a phone_ , followed by a number and several x’s and o’s.

Steve falls into a chair and laughs, ignoring the pain that causes, scrubbing a hand over his face. So he technically, tentatively has a sugar daddy. This is his life now.

He sets up his new phone and makes a call so Bucky will know he received his gift and made it through the night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Steve hates hospitals for a variety of reasons but realistically if you suspect you have a cracked rib you should go to the hospital to get an official diagnosis and rule out internal bleeding. Don't be like Steve.

**Author's Note:**

> Yep, the title is from the Talking Heads song.
> 
> Come throw tomatoes at me on [Tumblr](http://80shorrormovie.tumblr.com)


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